The Power of the Reschedule

The Power of the Reschedule: Your Business Does Not Need You Available 24/7

I used to think having awesome customer service meant that I was available all the time, no matter what was happening in my personal life. If a client or employee needed me, I figured out how to be there. If one of my kids had something at the same time as work, I (gulp) put my clients and employees first. If I was having panic attacks, exhausted, overwhelmed, or my brain was ready to cook itself, it didn’t matter. I pushed through it all because I thought that was what successful business owners did.

Thankfully, life has humbled me as I learned lesson after lesson on what success means to me. Yes, I am a business owner, but I am also a wife, mom, friend, employer, and a soul living in a body that sometimes has very different plans than the ones written on my calendar. I have spent years learning how to juggle home life, a traumatic brain injury, and now Parkinson’s Disease. There are days when I can accomplish an incredible amount. But there are days, from the moment I wake up, that it feels like I am operating in quicksand. No amount of ambition or clients or pushing though changes that reality for me.

For a long time, probably up until six years ago, I broke my body to work 24/7. I love what I do and I am naturally driven. I want to grow and I have ideas that I am constantly excited to bring to life. But my husband, children, and my health come first so that I can stay strong enough to serve my life’s purpose as a business owner.

I Have Become a Huge Fan of the Reschedule

There is a lot of power in realizing that something can simply be moved to another day. I do accounting for a living. And while finances are important, and bring tremendous peace to our clients, what I do isn’t so life saving that an appointment cannot be moved to another day.

It sounds selfish for me to even type that, but it took me years to stop thinking that if I rescheduled a meeting I had failed someone. Often, they told me it worked better for them because they were so underwater themselves. And that adding one more meeting to their plate would push them over the edge as well. Then, when we did meet, both of us were so grateful to be of a better mindset, that we moved faster and stronger together.

My Health Changed the Way I Define Productivity

There was a time in my life where I could brute force my way through almost anything. I didn’t need sleep. I could go go go non stop for months.  I would convince myself that crashing and hiding from everyone every few months was just how it was as a business owner.  I also told myself that I would cut back on hours when everything was finished or that things slowed down. You know, as much as I know now, that we never slow down. If there is a break in productivity or sales, we find other things to do because rest feels selfish.

My health, since six years ago, forced me to learn something my ambition kept me blinded to: capacity is not meant to be the same every day. You are meant to have short bursts of creativity followed by rests and plateaus.  After my traumatic brain injury, there were (are) things my brain could no longer do. I had to relearn skills most adults never think twice about. Over the years, I have learned that my neuro-fatigue is real and I need to listen to it. Hence, the power of the reschedule.

Boundaries Have Made Me A Better Leader

I also have my employees watching how I treat myself and my family. I cannot tell them to take care of themselves when I don’t. They wouldn’t listen to me if I am not leading by example. I cannot tell them that families come first and then behave as though mine does not. And lastly, I cannot say that we care about people and clients beyond their productivity while creating a company where the owner is expected to be available every second.

I truly believe that the culture of a company is shaped by what leadership actually does, not just what is said or written in the employee handbook. When I give myself permission to have boundaries, I am also giving my employees and clients permission to be human too. People have sick kids, they have families, they have real life stress outside of work. I want to continue building a community where those things are allowed to matter more than showing up for a meeting that can easily be rescheduled.

I am not saying be a flake. But when real life happens. When once in a lifetime opportunity comes your way. Or if one more meeting is going to be awful for you, listen to yourself. I think business owners need more grace around this because of the enormous amount of responsibility we carry on our shoulders and in our minds. It can feel incredibly difficult to turn that responsibility off and then we end up burning out.

Sometimes leadership is pushing through the things we don’t want to do. Sometimes owning a business means we admit we do not have the capacity to make good business decisions today and delegate the tasks to your team. Above all, leadership is being the example of what boundaries and work life balance actually look like.  The reschedule has become a powerful mindset shift for me because it reminds me that I control my life and calendar. My calendar and business do not control me.

Your Action Steps This Week, Should You Choose To Accept:

1. Look at your calendar and find one place where you are forcing your personal life, health, or family to bend around your business when the business could reasonably bend instead
2. Reschedule it, delegate it, or cancel it completely
3. Give yourself permission and grace to do so without turning that decision into evidence that you are somehow less committed to your company or that you are a lazy, unproductive bum

Next steps:

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Because at the end of the day, positive cash flow isn’t luck, it’s strategy. And it’s my goal to make that strategy as simple as possible for you.